Handout 2: Tips On Caring For Your Butterfly Garden

Welcome to your butterfly garden! The garden needs you to take care of it. Here are a few easy ways to care for your garden:

Because many plants are poisonous, never taste or eat any plant part.

Do not walk among the plants or step on plants. A broken branch wounds the plant.

Please let the flowers remain for the butterflies and other students to enjoy; do not pick them.

If you find an uprooted plant that a dog or other animal has dug up, please replant it. Always set plants in the soil at the same depth as before.

Please remove paper trash that might blow into the garden.

The better you care for your garden, the prettier it will be.

If you see a caterpillar on a plant, don't disturb it. The plant is its food. The caterpillar will molt its skin as it grows into a larger caterpillar, and then molt again when it enters the pupal phase (an inactive stage). After a period of time, a winged adult butterfly or moth will emerge from the pupa.

A good book to help you identify the butterflies in your garden is The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies by Robert M. Pyle (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).